What happened
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA 4.19%) were down 6.5% today as of noon ET. The sharp move down is in tandem with widespread pain in the stock market. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 3.1%.
Another wave of selling followed the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates by 0.5% last week. The Fed is attempting to cool off inflation, but fears are rising that the central bank is playing catch-up and its aggressive rate hikes could cause a recession.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
There was no specific financial news coming from Nvidia to cause the stock to fall so far in a single day. However, last week news broke that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will collect a $5.5 million fine from the company. The fine relates to the SEC's claim that Nvidia failed to fully disclose how much it was being affected by the cryptocurrency boom and bust in 2018 and 2019. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are used to mine some cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
With a market cap of over $430 billion, $5.5 million in fines is nothing for Nvidia, but perhaps some anxiety that the SEC wields such power over publicly traded companies is contributing to the stock's underperformance today. Additionally, some reports are emerging that demand for video game GPUs (the same ones often favored by crypto miners) is starting to wane. That follows reports from some analysts that consumer spending on devices is beginning to slow after two years of a pandemic-fueled shopping spree on all things consumer tech.
Over 40% of Nvidia's revenue is categorized under video gaming-related sales.
Now what
Nvidia will report first-quarter financial results on May 25. During its last earnings update a couple of months ago, CEO Jensen Huang and company said to expect year-over-year revenue growth of 43%. After a steep sell-off in the last six months, Nvidia stock now trades for 54 times trailing-12-month free cash flow. This is no cheap stock, but given its torrid pace of growth and massive secular trends like artificial intelligence filling its sails, now could be a great time to buy for long-term investors (those who plan to hold for at least a few years).
